Valentão

Valentão 5[credit]

Ice: Code Gate - Illicit
Strength: 6

Influence: 3

As an additional cost to rez this ice, take 1 bad publicity or remove 1 tag.

[subroutine] Gain 2[credit].

[subroutine] The Runner loses 2[credit].

[subroutine] End the run if you have more credits than the Runner.

"The only rule you need to remember is that it makes the rules."
—Pumpkin-and-Dumplin
Illustrated by Scott Uminga
Decklists with this card

The Automata Initiative (tai)

#60 • English
Startup Card Pool
Standard Card Pool
Standard Ban List (show history)
Printings
Rulings
  • Updated 2023-10-04

    Are bad publicity credits counted when counting how many credits the Runner has?

    Yes. However, note that if the Corp took bad publicity from rezzing Valentão during this run, the Runner will not have an additional credit for that bad publicity.

Reviews

Design: Valentão is a “soft” illicit that drains credits before comparing credit pools.

  • You can detag to skip the badpub (unlike “hard” illicit's).
  • You'll end the run if, for example, you had $4 and they had $7 before the encounter, (because you'll reach $6 and they'll drop to $5). Which is like a “pseudo-trace-attempt” (cf. ↳ Trace [4]. If successful, end the run.).

Compare: Whitespace crossed with a Veritas (and a Muckraker).


Flavor: In Brazilian Portuguese, “valentão” seems to mean “bully”.

en.wiktionary.org

PS. A Jinteki Valentão could “drain” cards (like Vampyronassa does) before comparing hand sizes: ↳ Do 1 net damage. ↳ You may draw 1 card. ↳ If there are more cards in HQ than in the grip, end the run.


(EDIT) Piranhas has been printed in this (mini?)cycle, which is also a $5/6s/3↳ codegate, also with take 1 bad publicity or remove 1 tag illicit-ness, and that also ‘drains’ a value (from the Runner to the Corp) before comparing those values; but it's in NBN and it drains cards-in-hand.

(The Automata Initiative era)

Right on the money. Only in NBN instead of Jinteki

If you're playing startup as of the 2025.04 ban list (Elevation Release) and looking to build a Weyland deck, you might be tempted to play this in the code gate slot. After all, most of the other options are either gearchecks (Descent, Flyswatter) or are straight up porous (Syailendra), while this has a big stat line and the possibility of ending the run on it. Weyland decks also tend towards being rich, and you've got a lot of other stuff to spend your influence on, so why not, the bad publicity isn't that big a downside.

Think again.

The problem is that a lot of runners (mostly shapers) are also extremely rich, and you're going to be wanting to spend a bunch of money rezzing other big ice such as Logjam, Hammer and Biawak. A fully stacked Unity breaks it for five on the first encounter, and a non-stacked one breaks it for eight, but if the runner has four more credits than you do suddenly it's being passed for two. Effectively one if it's the second encounter and you can spend the bad pub somewhere, and you're making every run on another server also cost one less. The face check isn't even that bad if it's not a critical run.

To minimise this risk, you want it as close to the server root as you can get with some ice in front of it, so the runner spends more money before getting to that point. However this means finding and installing it early, and probably rezzing it early, which makes the bad pub even more of a liability for you.

This card is the ice version of the concept of "win more", and that's not what you want your ice to be doing. If you're ahead then any of your other beefy ice will do, and this fails you at the worst possible moments. Win more is good in netrunner, but you want that through things that let you score agendas faster (Seamless Launch) or end the game on the spot through damage (Measured Response).

If you've got a whole bunch of anarchs and crims around though, which tend to be less wealthy, you could consider slotting one or two of these.

(Elevation era)

Fun, illicit (meaning it generate bad pub) ice. Just like with Piranhas, if you do not want to get a bad pub, you can put Funhouse or Ping in front of it.

The interesting thing about this is the economic difference this ice generate. On facecheck, +2 for the corp make the ice functionally cost 3. But on top of this, it also drain the runner's credits, pushing the runner to break the ice. With a strength of 6, it resist Arruaceiras Crew fairly well.

Of course, this combine well with The Outfit: Family Owned and Operated, making the ice cost only 2.

Otherwise, it is a great ice for rush decks, because of its strength and price. The bad pub does not matter as much if you win before turn 10. In combination with other bad pub / illicit cards (like Hostile Takeover and Too Big to Fail), it allow the corp to reliably play Regulatory Capture.

At 3 influence, you need a good reason to play this out of faction. It might go well with some NBN decks that tag the runner, since those decks will allow you to either not generate bad pub, or drain the credits of the runner faster.

Name, art, card effect and quote combine seamlessly together. Beautiful!

(Rebellion Without Rehearsal era)
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